CHAPTER THREE

Monday morning. I’m immersed in Excel spreadsheets, surveying the health, or lack thereof, of my company, when Gordon Farrow rings. The pleasantries don’t take long, but he is pleasant, and genuine. A decent man. Even without Tom’s damning account of Caro’s mother, if Caro is the average of Gordon and his ex-wife, I have no desire to meet the ex-wife.

“So who’s on your list, Kate?” asks Gordon. We’ve moved on to first-name terms. He means who would I target for the open positions at his firm; I’ve been prepping for exactly this question, only I’m a little thrown to be answering it on the phone on Monday rather than at lunch on Tuesday. Still, I move smoothly into my “here’s-one-I-prepared-earlier” answer, and we bat back and forth on that for a few minutes.

Paul enters the office we share as I’m talking, loosening his silk tie as he sinks into the chair behind his desk. His blond eyebrows, so pale as to be not worth having, rise as he listens to my half of the conversation while drinking his take-out coffee. “Haft & Weil?” he mouths.

I nod, then my attention is fully caught by Gordon’s next comment, stated with such deliberate casualness that it’s clear this is what he’s been waiting to talk about all along. “You haven’t mentioned Dominic Burns.”

“Not Dominic,” I say instantly. It’s an instinctive response—I should have prevaricated, I should have given myself time to find out if Gordon is hell-bent on hiring this man, but it’s too late for that now. Across the room Paul is choking on his coffee.

“Why not Dominic?” asks Gordon diffidently. “He’s a prime candidate, with his experience. And I hear he’s looking to move; he wants to head up a meaningful business area with the right support to really make a dent into private equity clients.”

“Do you have any plans to retire, Gordon?” I ask. “In the next, say, five years?” Paul’s eyes almost pop out. He makes urgent gestures.

“I’m not following you,” says Gordon, after a moment.

“Dominic Burns doesn’t want a job heading up a business area. He wants your job. Managing partner.”

“He doesn’t have that kind of experience,” Gordon objects.

“Not yet. But he’s aggressively ambitious, and after a couple of years at Haft & Weil, he’ll start to feel he deserves a shot. Which is fine if you’re looking for someone to hand the reins to. But if not, he’ll go looking for a firm where he can get the opportunity he really wants. You’ll have him in place for three years tops.” Paul is standing now in obvious agitation. His frantic hand-waving may be interpreted as ordering me to stop talking or to immediately slit my throat. I ignore him and continue: “When he jumps ship he’ll take all your lovely new clients with him, and probably a host of your up-and-coming juniors, too.” I give Paul a one-fingered gesture of my own, which isn’t open to any misinterpretation, then spin my chair to face away. I like Gordon. I don’t want to see him make the wrong hire. “And you’ll be back at square one.”

There’s silence down the phone line for a long moment, then Gordon says, “You sound like you know him well.”

“I do, actually. I worked under him for a while at Clifford Chance.”

“Interesting. Well, that’s certainly food for thought, Kate.”

I put down the phone and spin round to find Paul looming over my desk, almost incoherent with frustration. “What are you doing?” he groans, one hand clutching his head. “The first rule of service industries: give the client what they want. The man wants to hire Dominic Burns, so tell him you’ll get him Dominic Burns. It’s a no-brainer!”

“It’s the wrong hire,” I argue. “He needs to know that.”

“No! He doesn’t! He needs to hire him, and pay us a whacking great check!” I can’t deny a whacking great check would be helpful. Paul sees my weakness and presses on. “Kate, we need this, and you’ve just blown it. Why the hell would you torpedo it? If he’s got his mind set on someone, then we get them. It’s as simple as that.”

“He’ll respect us more for giving him honest, open feedback,” I fire back, stung by his “blown it” comment. Though of course he may be right. “We don’t need this so badly that I’m going to forget how to do a good job.”

“If we don’t get a big contract soon, you won’t be doing any job.” He lets out a long breath.

“We’re fine.” I spin the computer screen to show him what I’ve been looking at. He perches on the desk and leans in to run his eye down the figures. “See, the small stuff is going to tide us over. We’ve got time, and we’re obviously building a name or Haft & Weil wouldn’t even be talking to us.”

“The small stuff keeps the lights on and the printer running,” he says dismally. “It doesn’t, you know, pay us. Which I’ve got to say, I’m quite attached to, as a concept.” He runs a hand through his hair. I realize he looks tired. It doesn’t sit well on his fair skin. “I don’t think I’m going to land the Freshfields guy.”

“Ah.”

“Ah indeed.” He sighs and climbs off the edge of the desk, then turns back to me. “Haft & Weil are going to cancel the lunch, you know.”

“They won’t.” It’s only dogged bravura that forces me to disagree with him. Nobody calls for an in-depth strategy session if they intend to keep a lunch date the following day.

“You’ll see,” Paul says wearily.

That afternoon Gordon Farrow’s secretary calls me: not to cancel, but to postpone due to “Mr. Farrow’s travel commitments.” Paul wisely says nothing.

---

Monday evening finds me back at my flat unusually early for the appointment with Mr. Modan. Actually Monsieur Alain Modan, Investigateur, OPJ—whatever that stands for. Basically the French detective. He would have met me at my office if I’d preferred, but I’d rather Julie and Paul not know about this. Helping the police with their inquiries could end up sounding like a euphemism for something more sinister after a few Chinese whispers, and who wants to hire a legal recruiter that’s in trouble with the law?

“Thank you for seeing me,” he says as we settle into my living room.

“It wasn’t clear to me I had the option to refuse.” I smile to lessen the sting.

He is rummaging through his bag and looks up at my words, his long, intelligent face already pulled into a half-ironic smile. There are deep smile lines framing his mobile mouth, and a slim-fitting dark gray suit hangs on his too-lanky, too-thin frame; somehow the sum of the parts is an unexpectedly attractive man. I can’t possibly imagine a British detective in the same mold. “There is always the option, non?” he says, his accent unmistakable. “Though I would not think it the wisest choice.” The smile flashes again, then he returns to his bag. I watch as he finds his notepad and flicks through the pages.

“Tea? Coffee?” I make the offer once the silence has grown uncomfortably long from my point of view. In truth I want a glass of wine, but not one that comes with Modan’s interrogation.

“No, thank you,” he says without looking up. Finally he turns his dark eyes on me. “I’m sorry, this is very inconvenient for you, but please, a few questions. You probably answered the same ten years ago, but it’s . . . how you say . . . procedure.” He spreads his hands wide, palms up, with a Gallic shrug, inviting me to sympathize: Procedure. What can you do, eh?

“It was a very long time ago,” I say steadily. “I doubt I can add anything. Probably the opposite—I expect I’ve forgotten so much that I’ll confuse things for you.”

He shrugs again. “Well, let’s see. Yes?”

“Yes. Of course, go ahead.” He’s here now, in the country and in my living room. Of course he’s going to ask his questions. Of course I’ll have to answer them. And all the time Severine will be waiting for her chance to appear. I had thought she would fade away after a few days, once I’d got over the shock, but no. Severine has more staying power than I anticipated.

“Bon, so you left the farmhouse on Saturday the sixteenth, yes?”

“Yes.”

“All six of you?”

“Yes, all six of us.” Six on the vacation. Really four plus two, but not the two I’d expected. I’d imagined it would be Seb and me, plus a selection of our friends. It turned out to be Lara and me, plus Seb and his friends.

“You drove back to London?”

I nod. “In my car.” We’d planned to use Seb’s father’s BMW, but there had been some problem, I can’t remember what. The others had been extremely rude about my ancient little banger until it turned out it was the only vehicle we could get hold of.

“Ah yes. In your”—he checks his notes—“Vauxhall Nova.” He checks again. “Really?” He looks at me doubtfully. “Six of you? That would be very . . . squished.”

“Four of us. Theo and Tom took the train back together; I dropped them at the station that morning, then went back for the others.”

“Ah, Theo.” He pronounces it the French way: Tay-o. “Afghanistan, yes? Very sad.” His long face does indeed hold sympathy; whether genuine or not, I can’t tell. I expect he’s very good at his job.

“Yes. Very sad.” It is sad, and senseless and a waste and a whole lot of other things I can’t possibly put into words, but even if I could, it wouldn’t change the outcome. Theo is dead.

“He was very patriotic?”

“I’m sorry?”

“He loved his country very much? He always wanted to be a soldier, to fight for her?”

I rub my forehead. “No, I don’t think . . . We were all quite surprised when he enlisted.” Theo hadn’t seemed the type. Too nervous, too self-conscious. The army seemed to me like a grown-up version of a boys’ boarding school; Theo had hated boarding school. I shake my head abruptly. “I’m sorry, what has this got to do with—”

He puts out a placating palm. The man has an elegant gesture for everything. “Forgive me, forgive me. We must return to the point. What time did you leave the farmhouse?”

I try to remember. I must have dropped Theo and Tom at the train station before nine, I think. The rest of us had planned to be on the road by nine thirty, but Caro wasn’t ready. One more reason to be furious with Caro—not that I needed another reason that morning, after the revelations of the previous night. “Erm, perhaps ten thirty?”

He nods and makes a note. “Were you the driver?”

“Yes. I was the only one insured.”

“You drove all the way back? You didn’t share?” His surprise is clear.

I remember the journey, although I don’t want to. The car lacked air-conditioning; I was hot and tired and tight-lipped with hurt and resentment. Caro sat in the back, uncharacteristically pale and quiet; I wondered if she was suffering in the aftermath of the drugs and thought savagely that it would serve her right. Lara was golden and sleek, full of catlike satisfaction after a few days of frolicking with Tom; she slept almost all the way. And Seb . . . I don’t want to think about Seb. I swallow. “Like I said, I was the only one insured.”

His lips twist and he makes another note. “Bon, so, a Vauxhall Nova. Were there any other automobiles at the property?”

“No. We just used my car.” My mobile rings: Lara. “Sorry,” I say, quickly turning it off. I can call her later; I want to get this over with.

“You’re sure? Nothing in the garage?”

“Well, there was an old Jag that belonged to Theo’s father, but we never touched it. No one was allowed to drive it.” The farmhouse belonged to Theo’s parents back then; they sold it later, after Theo died.

He is nodding; he obviously knows about the Jaguar. “Did you see Miss Dupas on the morning of departure?”

“No.” I can feel my muscles tensing, as if anticipating an impact.

“The day before, perhaps?”

“Yes.” My answers are brief, clipped.

“Was that . . . habitual?” The word choice is odd; perhaps he has translated directly from the French. “Did she pass much time with you during the week?”

I nod again. He assesses me with his dark eyes and sits silently, waiting for more. I sigh: monosyllabic responses are not going to get me through this interview. “Theo’s family and hers were on quite friendly terms. Both families had been spending most of the summer down there for years. Severine’s parents’ place didn’t have a pool, but Theo’s parents let them use theirs whenever they wanted.”

Severine has appeared, swept in on the flow of words. She’s facing away from me on the steps of the pool in a black bikini, knee-deep in the cool water, her narrow back perfectly straight. Seb, Lara, Caro and I have just arrived, and Theo, who arrived earlier, is showing us round; the unexpected sight of a girl in the pool draws us all up short. “Severine!” exclaims Theo, bounding toward her. “I didn’t expect to see you.” She turns her head and regards us all, then climbs out of the pool to treble-kiss him hello, apparently completely unselfconscious despite her scant attire. I find it hard to look away. The narrowness of her hips is a marvel; her belly is flat yet soft, like a child’s. Her shoulders and arms shimmer with the sheen of sunscreen. “Theo,” she says solemnly, her English heavily accented. “I did not know I would be here, either.” She looks at the rest of us, weighing and measuring. “I am Severine,” she says. “The mademoiselle next door.”

“You saw her every day?” asks Alain Modan. I’m grateful for the question; it dissolves Severine’s presence.

“Yes. She would come to the pool, and often she would eat dinner with us.”

He nods. “How was she?” I look at him blankly. He snaps his fingers repeatedly, frustrated with himself as he tries to find the right words. “Her . . . emotions, her . . . temperament, how was she?”

“Well, she was . . .” I stop, trying to find the right words myself. “She was a very . . . self-contained girl. If there was anything bothering her I wouldn’t have known.”

“Was she closer to one than another? Perhaps she spent more time with Theo, since they already knew each other?”

“No, not Theo.” He looks up sharply from his notebook at my tone and raises his eyebrows. “I mean, not with anyone specifically,” I add quickly.

His eyebrows have not quite descended fully, and his eyes remain on me. I work hard to hold his gaze and I don’t think of Seb.

After a moment he gives a minute shrug and looks at his notebook again. “Did she speak about her plans for after she left the Dordogne?”

“Not with me. Though Caro said that she told Theo she was heading back to Paris.”

He cocks his head to one side. “Caroline Horridge? She said that?”

I nod. “The other night.”

He is making notes again, in his little book. His handwriting is like tiny spiders multiplying across the page. “So. The well. There was—how do you say, workings?—going on?”

“Building works.” It’s a relief to move on to something less personal. “Theo’s parents wanted to rent the place out. They needed a few things done to comply with the safety regulations.”

Modan is nodding. “Oui. A fence round the pool. And the well filled in.”

“Probably.” I shrug. “I remember the builders doing the pool fence.” Suddenly the significance of what he’s saying hits me. “Oh. The well. She . . . God, she must have been in there before they filled the well.” The skull appears, but it’s no longer gleaming. Sand fills the eye sockets and spills out of the grinning mouth. I find my hand is at my mouth and carefully remove it to descend to my lap. “Is that why you didn’t find her? I mean, till now?”

“We didn’t find her because we were looking in the wrong place,” he says simply. His eyes are fixed on me again. I can’t fathom his expression.

“Do you think it was her boyfriend? Ex-boyfriend, I mean?”

“We’re looking at all possibilities—”

“Yes, but you must be looking pretty hard at him in particular,” I say impatiently, suddenly fed up with the one-sided nature of this interview, even though that’s how interviews are meant to be. “There was a history, right? Severine said she’d had to call the police about him before.”

“There’s no record of that.” He’s looking at me as if he’s waiting for something.

I pause. “No record?” Severine lied. Why would she lie about that?—but I instantly know the answer. To appear more mysterious, more alluring. The kind of woman a man would literally go insane for.

“None,” says Alain Modan calmly. “And the ex-boyfriend, he was doing a science project, some very intense work for his thesis. He was in the laboratory every day in June, even weekends, attending to his cultures or some such . . .” His hand waves expressively. “So.” He is still watching, waiting for me to catch on to something. I shake my head dumbly. He tries again. “So . . . unless the well was not filled in until July—”

The doorbell buzzes, cutting him off. He cocks his head questioningly at me. I shrug then raise myself up from the sofa to go and answer, and find that I’m stiff. I’ve been sitting unnaturally still for a very long time now.

I know it’s Lara before I open up; I can hear her rustling in her bag for the spare key she keeps. “Lara, the detective is here,” I say quickly as I unlatch the door, forestalling her greeting.

She looks past me, alarmed, as if she can see through the hall walls to the living room. “I thought that was tomorrow,” she whispers urgently.

“No, today. You may as well come and say hello.”

“But I don’t . . . I’m not . . . But . . .” I look at her, puzzled, then she takes a deep breath and smooths her dress. “Okay.” She comes in, taking a quick glance at herself in the hallway mirror before she follows me into the living room.

Mr. Modan has climbed to his feet and is looking out of the window. He turns as he hears us enter the room, and his face goes oddly still. Before I have a chance to say a few words of polite introduction, Lara speaks up from behind me. “It’s you.”

I glance at her, not understanding the words or her tone. Her cheeks are flushed, and she’s half turned to the door, as if she still might flee. The French investigator could be a statue. I’m not completely sure he’s breathing. Then with an effort, he comes alive and shoots the cuffs of his suit before crossing the room to shake her hand. “Yes. Alain Modan.”

“Lara Petersson,” she says quietly. “But of course you know that.”

I look from one to the other. I wonder if it will be the same one? She wasn’t talking about the lead investigator. “I take it I’ve been very rude and failed to remember you from the earlier investigation,” I say dryly to Alain Modan.

He turns to me with a quick smile and raises a hand as if to say, No matter. “It was a long time ago. I was very junior, one of many assisting.” He looks back at Lara, then away quickly. Then he collects himself. “Miss Channing, you have a guest. We can continue another time, if I have more questions.”

“Oh. Okay. Fine.” If I’d known having a guest would roust him, I’d have arranged for an interruption long before this, I think sourly. Except I wouldn’t have, really. Better to get these things over and done with.

He turns to Lara. “À demain, Miss Petersson.” Until tomorrow.

“Oui, à demain,” she says, then follows up with something too quick for me to catch. I forgot Lara’s French was rather impressive; she’s one of those irritating Scandinavians with umpteen languages to their credit.

When I’ve closed the door on Monsieur Alain Modan, investigateur, I follow Lara to the kitchen and find her already pulling a bottle of white wine from my fridge and studiously avoiding my eye.

“What was that all about?”

She pours two glasses. Very large glasses. She seems to be giving the task more attention than it deserves. “Nothing. What do you mean?”

“Don’t give me that. Did you and he . . . ?”

“No!” She looks up, appalled. “Of course not!” I hold her gaze until she breaks and takes a sip of her wine.

I reach out for my own glass and take a sip, still watching her. She’s avoiding my eyes again. “Lara,” I say warningly.

“Oh, all right!” She folds, like I knew she would, and finally looks up. “Nothing happened, truly. He, um . . .” She takes another sip of wine, then says in a rush, “He wouldn’t. He said it wouldn’t be proper. Appropriate, I mean. Under the circumstances.” She’s blushing, more furiously than I’ve ever seen before.

“Oh my God,” I say wonderingly, a smile breaking out slowly on my face. “He’s that mythical creature. The one that got away from Lara Petersson.”

“He’s not . . . It’s not . . . Oh, fuck off,” she says, screwing up her nose prettily. She takes an unfeasibly long drink from her glass, then looks at me dejectedly. “Only it’s still not appropriate, right? Not until he clears us from the investigation. And then he’ll be back in France.”

“I can’t believe you never told me any of this.” I’m not hurt; I’m just amazed that I missed this.

She ducks her head apologetically. “Well, like I said, nothing happened. And you and Seb had just split up, and you know what a state that left you in. I didn’t want to dump my crap on you . . .”

For once the mention of Seb slides by almost unnoticed; I’m too thrown by this revelation. What else did I miss when I was licking my Seb-inflicted wounds? She takes in another large slug of wine, and I gaze at her in bemusement. Not only did the rejection matter to her then, it clearly still matters now. This is a Lara I haven’t seen before.

And then I think, Poor Tom.